- Resource and Career Planning Center. A program of the information service of the Dean of women's office 222 Strong Hall. Located in the women's Resource and Career Planning Center is a large lending resource service which contains vast amounts of information in the form of news clippings, government documents, magazine articles, research studies, and books, pertaining to the many aspects of the women's movement. We would like to invite you to come in and browse or take advantage of this lending service. That's in 222 Strong Hall at the University of Kansas. the materials in the women's Resource and Career Planning Center are as valuable for men as for women, since sex role definitions and stereotypes affect both sexes. We would invite you to listen tonight as we discuss sex roles stereotyping in children's literature, and invite you also to call in with your questions or comments to the open line. Once again the number is 864 4530. And now I would like to introduce to you our panelists and show you a little bit about each one of them. We have with us, Ms. Virginia Woolf, KU lecturer in the English department, who has taught courses in the area of children's literature. Also, we have Ms. Mary Poretzky, Director of the Children's Room in the Lawrence Public Library. Ms. Lynne Knox is a student who works with the Commission on the Status of Women. She's also Coordinator of the IF Coalition in Lawrence. And she'll tell you a little bit about that. Ms. Vicky Landman, a student also is involved with the athletic aspect of the IF Coalition and has been a physical education teacher. Ms. Woolf, would you like to tell us a little bit about what you do at KU? - Each semester I teach a two courses in children's literature and do various sundry other things here and there that has to do with children's literature. My primary interest in children's literature is in the literature as literature but being interested in the women's movement. I'm also interested in sex role stereotypes in children's literature. - Lynn, would you like to tell us a little about what you're doing? - Well, I'm presently coordinator of the IF Coalition which is the Individual Fulfillment Coalition, which is a group of Lawrence citizens who are studying the school system for possible sex stereotyping and in many aspects of the school district, and textbooks is one of these. All the books that are used in the Lawrence school system are being looked at to some degree for possible sex stereotyping. - Okay, Ms. Poretzky. - Well, I'm in charge of children's services at the Lawrence Public Library. My roles are varied. I buy all the books for the children's department. I'm in charge of all the programs in the children's department. The most important role I play, I think, and my staff plays, is seeing the children find the books that they want to read or that will be interesting to them to read. And with that in mind, I read a lot of the books that I buy for the department and I am interested in sex roles as portrayed in the books that are being written for children. I think that's about all I want to say about that now. - Okay, Vicky. - Well, I've taught physical education for four years and I recently started going back to school at KU to get an elementary credential and became interested in just general educational stereotyping but particularly relevant to textbooks and both the Lawrence Chapter of the National Organization for Women and the Lawrence Chapter of the Kansas Women's Political Caucus is working on this. Just some studies of this and I'm working on this. - Okay, well, I think a good starting place for us to begin tonight would be in talking a little bit about how influential or how powerful children's books really are. If this is an issue that we should be concerned with. If we think that it is very important. Ms. Poretzky in dealing with children at the library, do you think that it makes much of a difference what kind of books they read? - I think it makes a difference what kind of books they read. I'm not too sure that the sex stereotyping is the most important thing because I think the stereotyping has been done before the child ever sees a book or ever learns to read. I think what you find in the books is a reinforcing of the sex roles. I don't know. I haven't seen any studies and I haven't followed anything up to see how a child is affected by the books. - I think it probably while it's true that in the past the child's preschool books had more of an influence. This was the only outside source of broadening child's horizon beyond the roles that they saw their parents exhibiting. But now, you know, with television, and a lot of other things, I still wouldn't wanna underestimate the impact of the books. - Well, I had a mother come in one day and she wanted a nice sweet book for her little girl. She didn't want a book that showed her little girl being a tomboy. And I helped her find a sweet book because I felt it wasn't my job at that point to educate the mother. I was just new at the job and was sort of feeling my way around. And I didn't feel if this was what you wanted this was what I was going to give her. But you find very few mothers coming in and asking specifically for sweet books for their girls. Now you get more and more mothers wanting books showing girls that can be something else. - In the schools in general, though, a lot of the learning is done through books. And from the time they start to read on up through history and social studies, science, everything is in reading. I think we'll find when we start talking about this a little bit more that the pictures are just as relevant to the subtle stereotyping as what is actually in the books too. So just because of the method of teaching, I think that anything one reads is well over 60% of the time- - What they are experiencing is a constant reinforcing of a stereotype that they've already gotten really pretty well imbibed. I mean, I think most of the studies say that by four a child's sex role, they've already clearly identified themselves as female or male. Then what they experience in the school system is it constant reinforcement, that kind of thing. - In their whole area of new knowledge that was being opened up to a child in terms of history and science, it's a new area. But as you say, the same thing is reinforced in the new area because our history books have not given adequate representation to the roles that women have played in history. - You know like this, the one series, I can't remember the name now, but they were listing as a history series listing of famous figures. And the only two women were Elizabeth Taylor, and Jackie Onassis. You know, there are your women. - Yeah, it certainly does tend to underplay the other achievements of women other than being wives of or glamorous traditional female type beautiful women. Before we go any further, shall we just talk about a little bit the roles that are depicted in children's textbooks for women or have been in the past. So we are clear on what we're talking about as a traditional role. So we know what the non-traditional roles would be. - I think also we ought to talk about the roles that books have assigned men because I think that's just as influential and just as important to the entire problem that the men's roles have been as limited as the women's. - Yeah, I think that's an important point. Focus on both of them. - Okay, would you like to bring up some examples of both points? - Well, I think I can do that. The textbooks have kind of a general way that they teach reading. And that is usually by the family method of showing a mother and father. There are very few single parent families depicted in reading texts. With one boy and one girl and the boy is always older than the girl. And this puts the boy in a position kind of over the girl, taking care of her, she helps him kind of thing. And if we're wanting to also look at what Lynn was talking about, to look at what that places on the boy, that's a constant reinforcement that you must be good and aspire and do all these great things. Also if in just general stories and readers, most of the stories are about boys. They're boys centered. In one study that was done by now chapter in New Jersey, 823 of the 134 readers had stories about boys. Only 319 had about girls. And then this went on down through those about adult males and females had similar statistics. And then even the animals come into this. There are always more about male animals than female. Then another thing that comes out in the readers a lot is this that the girls can not do things, that boys are hitting them with you can't do that, you're a girl. And this is kind of slid over by the fact that the boys are always older and telling the girls what to do. But this is another characteristic of the readers. - The literature is pretty much the same. There was a recent study done on the Caldecott Winners, which are, of course, this is picture books. The prize winning best picture book every year in the United States is given the Caldecott and a study of the books which either one or runners up for this award over the last five years has revealed that if you look at pictures first, there are 11 pictures of boys for every one picture of a girl. And if you include animals, male animals and female animals, that becomes 95 to 1. So in the first place they're not there. Female characters are not there. If they are there, they are passive, they are indoors, they are engaged in service activities. You know, helping mommy, helping little brother, this kind of thing. If you look at the adult female in the picture book in all of these 18 books there was not one woman who had a job or profession. And most of them were housewives. There was a fairy godmother, and then a sea maiden and that's about it. So chiefly, what you see is just the girls are absent and if they are- - If they are there their role is very, very minor. There is a book called "The Village That Slept" that one of the school libraries has. A child wanted to finish reading it and we didn't own it. So I sent to another library for it because it was such a good book. I read it. The children have been in an airplane crash and a boy and a girl and a baby survive. The girl does nothing but cry through the whole book because she's frightened and the little boy who was 10 says, "I must be a man" and he takes care of the little girl and tells her how to take care of the baby. And this is not, I mean, it's a bad book, but there are others that are just about as bad showing you what the little girls are like and what the little boy is supposed to be like. - Actually if you start looking through the golden books and some of these 39 centers that you get on the supermarket, you find that sexism is even more rampant than it is in the award-winning books. However, it's there in the award-winning books, too. This is true for the Newbery Award Winner too, winners. There's been a study done of those. It's not quite as bad. I think it's three to one. - Would you like to explain what that award is. - The Newbery Award is given for the best piece of fiction published in the United States for that year. These awards both are sponsored by the American Library Association. - And if the book's don't have any kind of sexism in the text of it, it's in the picture. In that the boy is jumping or running or building something. And the girl is, often even has her hands clasped in front of her, behind her, but very, very passive in watching or again, helping. - Well, what happens when you find a book that has say a tomboy figure for a girl. Is this really breaking a sex role stereotype? - Well, if you examine all of children's literature from those books for the preschool child through those books for child 12 to 14, you discover that there are two areas in which sexism is most obvious. The books for the preschool child and the books for the prepuberty child. And these are the tomboy books and they are all real. They should not be called tomboy books, they should be called teenage romances because what they deal with in essence is a character who is a tomboy who is giving up being a tomboy and finding out that it's nice to be a sex object. There you are. A girl like Al is the one we were talking about before, she cuts off her pigtails. She gets thin and suddenly she has lots of boobs and- - That's why I like Sally Watson's books. They're not great literature, but when Jade starts out to be a pirate, she ends up as a pirate. - There are very few of those. Most of them are not that kind at all. - Some of these are so startling. I have to mention, are you there God, this is Margaret. I read that this weekend. People have been shoving it at me all this time. And I just couldn't believe it. Four little 12 year olds form a club and their whole intent in life is on getting a boyfriend and growing a bust and getting through puberty. Yeah, so it's just something else. - Well, what about in that age group that you mentioned 12 to 14, when there are a lot of the books that I would call especially for girls. The "Nancy Drew" novels, the romances, the "Trixie Belde" type things. How do they fit into the whole scheme of things? - But that's just it. Those books are really reinforcing sex roles. As you know, this is a last ditch effort. And it's very important at this time. Sex becomes very important at this time. And so this where you find, I think, most of the books in addition to the books for the preschool child. And you can split them up too for boys and girls, which we should do again, because this is the sports book and the career book for the boy, as opposed to the teenage romance for the girl. - And the girls who are reading the teenage romances aren't teenagers for the most part. They're nine ten years old- - Nine, ten, eleven, twelve- - That's when they're reading "Nancy Drew". - Yeah, it's really prepuberty. - The ten year old is the last vested and she might be holding onto a little bit of the tomboy's manner, but she reads the book which has been written, to some extent, for the specific purpose of helping her find her feminine role. - Right. - And it tells her how she's expected to behave because she might not know. And she might just do what she felt like. - But then of course there are no teenage romances for boys. Which is one of the interesting... And they have to get through this stage too. - And what happens if a boy would ever be seen reading a "Nancy Drew" book? - I don't know there are boys who read "Nancy Drew" books. - "Nancy Drew" is sort of an exception, really, because she's a superwoman. I mean, you know, she's a James Bond figure. She can do anything. She's pretty and she wins all the prizes but she also can knock down a full grown man. - While still being pretty. - While still being pretty, yeah. - While she hasn't abandoned anything. - Well, what about in some of the, either textbooks or some of the weekly or periodical literature, which is put out not only for children but for teachers to use in the classroom, is there any hope in this area? Have any changes been forthcoming? Or is this still doing the same thing as all the textbooks that you've been talking about do? In terms of keeping men as men have always been, and women as women have always been. - Well there is a tendency on the part of some publishers to try, but I don't really think that there... It takes so long to to put out a book and have teachers look at it and give them comments and all this, that I don't think we're gonna see it for a couple of years, a real change. We're beginning to see it with the minorities being represented in textbooks. But here again, these are male minorities. Most of the time that they have stories about. Not very much is there very much coming out about women. They may now have something in history books, but maybe if women are lucky a chapter about the history. If that usually just a page or a paragraph concerning the history of something. - There is though some supplemental material like a "Weekly Reader", and "Junior Scholastic" and these types of publications which are much more current and come out very frequently, as somewhat news magazines that do go into the women's movement. And there has been some objectivity upon it. - And then of course, teachers can use these at their discretion. That would be if a teacher would want to use it, he or she might take a whole day and talk about it. And then again, may just pass out the "Weekly Reader" and then have absolutely no discussion about it at all. But the "Weekly Reader" or the "Junior Scholastic" would be the ones that would be the most current and would deal with new issues. - Well before we start talking more positively, it seems that we've talked about the bad examples and things of that nature. Before we go on and give examples of what would be favorable in children's literature. Let's talk a little bit about fairytales, the word of mouth legendary roles and characters that you find in them. Can you think of any, in particular, that have portrayed women as human beings capable of all kinds of things? - None of the fairy tales portray any character as human beings. Good point. - You're dealing with an ideal world here and you're dealing with a very special genre, and this is a very sensitive area with me. And I knew it isn't as Mary because many of the attacks on the fairytales by people in the women's movement, I think reveal a lack of understanding of the way the fairy tale functions. You may find, if you look at variants of any particular fairy tale, fairy tales in which a role occupied by a woman is replaced in another variant by a man. For example, in "Hansel and Gretel", the witch and many variants of that tale is a male cannibal. And for every giant killer, well, not maybe for every giant killer, but for "Jack the Giant Killer" you have "Molly Whuppie", the giant killer who is a girl. What we're responding to, I think right now, is the fact that in Western culture we have made popular those tales, which reinforce the sex role stereotyping of Western culture. And Walt Disney has helped us along as you pointed out this afternoon. so that "Snow White", "Rapunzel", "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", these are the tales we know and nobody ever heard of "Molly Whuppie", which is a delightful tale. - If you're going into "Sleeping Beauty" you're going into death and rebirth, rather than sleeping beauty itself. There's a meaning there beyond what you see right on the surface. - You're really dealing with myth and with the subconscious mind, and- - In the battle forces of good and evil, which in the end, good usually wins out and evil gets its just desserts. Like the, they look at serving moment one who has to dance and, or is putting the barrel that's filled with spikes and dragged behind the car. This is in "The Goose Girl". And that's a very appropriate punishment for justice. - Which is always operating in the fairy tale. - And I don't think that some people have rewritten the fairy tales to take some of the gore out of it. But I think that they it's necessary to have this in it. - What do you think of... I read an article that had to do with the rewriting of "Snow white". - I think they should keep their hands off. I mean, this is a tale that has been polished by centuries. It's a gem, every item in its form works beautifully on a symbolic level and it should be left alone. And if you want to offset this influence, go to the shelves and find those tales that we've been ignoring for 200, 400, 500 years. They are there. And use some African tales and use some Chinese tales and you know, but balance it out in this way. - "The Snow Queen" is a perfect, I think a beautiful example of the girl who wins in the end. - East of the setting, West of the moon. A girl that really goes through everything to rescue her prince. Rather than a boy rescuing his princess. J Williams is writing some modern fairy tales like the practical princess, which the princess goes out and hacks up the dragon because nobody else has either the energy or the vision to see how to go about it. And he's written a number of them. - Right, I don't don't think that we wanna say that if you're interested in getting rid of sex role stereotyping that you should throw out that good literature that we have. And I think this is the problem with the fairytales and with some of the other literature that the women's movement has been critical of is a problem in textbooks too that you cannot look at a math book to decide whether or not you want to order it for your school on the basis of whether or not girls are active or not in the pictures. So this is a problem that we have to talk about but certainly is not gonna be the basis of selecting a book or not. - That leads you to the bigger problem really of how the book is taught because that's the important thing. If you can read the book and then be given a balanced picture of that versus reality, that doesn't harm the child. But if the child is led to think that this is reality you can be in for the same old thing. - This brings me into kind of my pet peeve about children's literature too. That's why I said at the beginning that I was interested in literature as literature because one of the things that's been the result of a women's movement pressure on publishers has been a lot of bad books. Books which have almost no literary merit whatsoever, but which do in fact attempt to portray a character who is not conditioned by sex role stereotyping. That's not enough and this is what goes on in children's literature. It's controlled by pressure groups who want to, either more black characters or want something about ecology or something about drugs or something about this. And nobody pays any attention to what kind of literature. - A lot of very bad books have been written just to... Suppliers have to take care of the demand for them. This is especially true with black literature and we're seeing it in the children's books with girls too. A lot of books with mommies can be, and this sort of thing. - And there's just nothing there, except for the fact that you get to stay with the mothers can occupy various kinds of professions. So what? You need something beyond that. - More than just a basic diagram, which really doesn't have any well aided creative substance or literary substance to it. - And this has been true in children's literature since the beginning, unfortunately. - We have to take a station break. This is a "Feminist Perspective", we'll be back with you in a moment. - The public's right to know what goes on in government is becoming increasingly important to the citizens of this country. This is true of a local as well as the state and national governing bodies. Government, as it is structured in the United States, is designed to represent it's citizens. Of late the faith of public... City commission meetings or any of the other civic activities that keep Lawrence functioning. 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Well, unless you recognize that we are human beings with feelings, with skills, with a sense of responsibility, then you're adding a handicap we can't overcome. - This public service message brought to you on behalf of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Advertising Council. - Welcome back to a "Feminist Perspective". Tonight, we're discussing sexism in children's literature. For those of you who may have just joined us, let me remind you that we have a call in line and we'll be more than happy to take your comments or questions. The number is 864 4530. Before we broke, we were talking about some of the difficulties in some of the areas in children's literature, which have perpetuated sex role stereotypes and have not been what we would consider to be very constructive for children. I think now we should start talking a little bit about the positive aspects. Where do we go from here? Are there any good books available? What does a frustrated parent do? - Well, it might be a good time for me to give this address. There is a committee called Feminists on Children's Media, who have compiled a list of articles about sexism in children's literature and also lists of non-sexist books. I can give the address. It's post office box 4315, Grand Central Station, New York, New York 10017. Their most extensive list is called Little Miss Muffet Fights Back. So I might also go ahead to say that I think these lists are sometimes very misleading though also. Many of the books on the list either lack literary merit or else one wonders if they've been read very carefully because even the little blurb that describes what they're about is oftentimes incorrect. So that you still are ultimately doing your own reading. - Let me just add to that, that in the Dean of Women's Office, in our Resource Center, we have a list of recommended books for children that we will be happy to share with you. If you stop by the office, 222 Strong Hall, we'll be happy to give it to you, to discuss it with you. Shall we talk a little bit about what should we consider to be a good book in this area? Someone must have a favorite. - I think we all have a favorite. It's the same book. - What's your favorite? - It's "Harriet" of course. - "Harriet The Spy". - Louise Fitzhugh's "Harriet The Spy" is probably the... I can't think of a better example, although there'd be some runners up. But I think here you see, you know, everything that you're looking for. Literary merit, the artistry of capturing Harriet's point of view, a unique little girl, just incredible in terms of intelligence and in her interesting activities, spying, window peeking and so forth, and her intelligence and her notebooks. But I think I see this as an example of non-sexist literature, because here we have a child, who is a girl, who is totally wrapped up in developing herself as a person and self-actualization, with no limits. she's not been confined by a sex role conditioning. Most because her parents have ignored her, unfortunately for her. Her mother makes a last ditch attempt at dancing. - Well, moreso that the boys in the book are very, very human characters. - Of course she has Sport, who's really occupying a female role, a traditional female role. - Except that he's the best football player in the whole school. - Right, but he is caring for his father and fixing meals and taking care of the money and doing the shopping. Janie the scientist who also breaks the stereotypes. So you have this and Harrison Withers, the artists who builds bird cages and keeps 49 cats and so forth. But I put it high on the list because it's good literature too. It's fun, I think for children and for adults both. - Do you wanna repeat the title and author again. - Louise Fitzhugh's "Harriet the Spy". And we should mention Scott O'Dell's, "Island of the Blue Dolphins". - In fact many of Scott O'Dell's books. "Sing Down The Moon" I liked very much. - And what she has a strong heroine and who manages despite odds to come out still as a strong person at the end. - I really much prefer "Island of the Blue Dolphins" to anything he's done. He so beautifully there captures the Indian perspective, her perspective. And of course, it's the only book we have in which a girl is the main character of a Robinson aid to survival story. - Well, you haven't read "Julie of the Wolves". - Oh "Julie of the Wolves" is the new Newbery winner, which is the same kind of thing. She's an Eskimo girl, yeah. - And survives by learning the ways of the wolves and by living with the wolves. And this is the book. - I had red one semi criticism of that. Not so much a criticism of the book but of the entire setting. Why is it that they have to put such a female character out of context of society? What are your reactions to that? - Well, she was out of context of the society. She was escaping. - Every single time I teach "Island of the Blue Dolphins", half my class says no 12 year old girl could do that. And they're expressing something about American society because the 12 year old girl in American society has never had the kind of responsibility that Corrina has had. She's already working to provide food for her family. She's already taking care of her brother. She's a woman, already. And it says something about the kind of conditioning that different societies provide. And ours does not provide that kind. So in effect, we keep children children. We keep twelve-year-olds children. - Whether or not they want to be or whether or not they're capable of being something else. - Right. - What about any literature that deals with an adult female that would be comparable to "Harriet The Spy" or "Island of the Blue Dolphins" I mean, here we have a girl main character, is there any dealing with adult females that are like that? - Wonder if the mother in "Sounder" wouldn't to some extent qualify, very strong woman. She's traditional role in that she's a mother, but she's very resourceful, enduring. I think it comes across as a very strong character, very admirable character. Even more so- - But she breaks the traditional matriarchal figure that in which she's a beautiful woman and she's very alive and does a lot of feminine type things. And obviously is not just a total matriarchal all the time. - Right, that's true too. - What about in the realm of textbooks or aids for teachers. For a teacher who may be concerned and would like to do some creative things in his or her classrooms? - Well, that really would... I know of some things that I've done, but I don't know whether anyone could give a list of things that a teacher can do, of course to have the list that was just given. You have available in the Dean of Women's Office that Virginia gave from feminists on children's media, it would be helpful to at least have those in mind. I know when I was student teaching in Lawrence, several little girls in the fifth grade would come up and ask me to give for that list, they really wanted to find some really good books for them to read. So they were concerned about it. When we have gone through some of these books in the same class, in the textbooks for reading group, where a girl will come out as being silly and stupid and not being able to cope with anything, crying all the time, boys saying things like, oh, she can't do it, she's a girl. And I mean, these are comments that are fairly rampant in the reading books, that the teachers should not let it go in my opinion. I mean, I think that should be talked about, what do you think about that? Is that the way it is? Sometimes you will get that will start pitting the boys against the girls and the girls will all say no and the boys will all say, sure, it is, girls are stupid and this, but they know it's all in fun. And they're just kind of carrying it on for just a good time. I've had them do creative writing, where they would try and reverse roles and describe what their life is like. In other words, if they're a little girl, they write like what it would be like if they were a boy and vice versa. And interestingly enough, the girls seemed to be able to get into this much more than the boys do. The boys do not want to even pretend that they are girls. Whereas the girls kind of enjoy doing that. I think we also mentioned some of the reading, "Weekly Readers", the magazine type things that come from the school system, would be helpful to use and not to just maybe just pass out but to kind of deal with it. And there, of course would be various projects a teacher could work on. Maybe have them even look through books and see what they can see or look at TV commercials or other things like that. And talk about it. - We should probably also mention the fantasies, we were talking about before, because in so many of the fantasies you have a male character who is doing what are typically feminine things. So I think of Bilbo Baggins in the "Hobbit", who is a very domestic creature, likes to cook and keep his house neat and seeing and give parties and entertain and so forth. And of the four characters in "The Wind in the Willows", I give my right arm for badgers kitchen, as I say. Every semester, very domestic, again, very much concerned with the domestic pleasures by choice. And here you can find male characters who break the stereotype, who are fearful, who sometimes cry, who are sensitive to other people's feelings and so forth and are more concerned with really feminine kinds of things, traditionally feminine kinds of things, nurturing so forth. - Are there any books that you would consider to be classics that were written oh, many years ago, say before people were conscious of a woman's movement or that probably the office didn't really realize what they were doing. That would now be considered in the kinds of positive books that we've been talking about? - I think both of those books are classics, "The Hobbit", "The Wind in the Willows", Alice- - That's what I was thinking. - "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", yeah she's- - How about "Little Women"? - do you really want me to talk about Little Women". - You had to say that, didn't you? - I'm sorry. - No, I think it would be interesting if both of you talked about your reactions to that since most people would probably read that that would be a listening. - "Little Women" in my mind is clearly a work of art and the characterization of Joe is magnificent. And of course she turned the century on its heel because she, and well Louisa May Alcott refused to have Joe Mary Lori, which is what was happening in every other domestic novel that was being published. And Joe wants to have a writing career and sets out to have a writing career. But of course, even though Louisa May Alcott never married, she copped out in the end. Joe does in fact marry and I very strongly feel that it's wish fulfillment. - Well, she's certainly marries as a father figure. - Yes, she certainly does. She marries Bronson Alcott as he should have been and not as he actually was. - But until you get up to that, for the first half of the book, is definitely- - I think, most people don't know that it's really two books. There was the "Little Women" which was published in 1868 and then a second book, which was published in 1869, called "Little Women Part two" in the United States. Published in England, even today is the second book called "Good Wives". And if you read to the end of the first book, you've got no complaints, you've got a feminist portrayed fully. A self portrait of Louisa May Alcott. But when you put the two books together, you affect new violence. - I really think so. - Yeah, especially if you know that she was pressured intensely by the publishers to write the first book and then to write a sequel. The pressure was even greater to write the sequel. She did so very rapidly and thereafter, most of her books tend to fall within the plot conventions of the popular domestic novel. Although, somewhat she has many spinster main characters in "Rosenblum" and "Eight Cousins" and in "An Old-Fashioned Girl", they're frequently flashes of early feminism coming through. I think of in "An Old-Fashioned Girl" that the woman who's created the statue of a woman and she thinks about what shall I put in her hand? And she considers a baby and a man's hand and rejects all of these things because she wants her to be sufficient in herself, a person in her own right. So she was there, but she just didn't have the imagination I think in "Little Women", in the second part of "Little Women" to come up with an alternative, even though she herself never married. It was obviously unsatisfactory to some extent for her. - And then there are books that aren't read as much as they used to be by girls, like "Anne of Green Gables" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" and those girls were really girls who did what they wanted to do. I think that the critics of children's literature are probably the ones that have killed these books, there are in good books. And I'm surprised the more girls don't read them because they read as well now, as I did 40 or 50 years ago when I first read them. - Very strong characters in those two books. On "Heidi", we might disagree. - Well, yes. - I think "Heidi" stinks. - I haven't really read "Heidi" for some time. She fights stink to me. - Well, here you have something else which I really detest in children's literature, especially literature for girls, is that the sentimentality. Heidi is really a super girl. Only here you're not dealing with an ideal world or a fantasy world. You're dealing with the real world. And you have a lot of the melodrama and a lot of the maneuvering manipulation in "Heidi" that you have in some mentality. Claire comes to the country and one month in the mountain near, and although she's never walked, she suddenly walks. - Well, I call that a miracle. - It's no problem with that at all. - But Heidi is of course, a strong little girl and two straws. - Well, in terms of encouraging, whether it would be authors or, what are some of the positive things that we can do. Lynn, do you see anything with part of your work with the IF Coalition in helping libraries to realize what are some good books or is there a way to make known that we would like some other things in children's books? - Well, I think what our coalition is doing is probably going to be trying working with the teachers more closely and just discussing this with the teachers. A lot of people have never even considered the fact that girls are presented with a very unrealistic picture in the children's literature and the boys, the same thing. And once it is brought out to them, I think it will be a lot easier for them to relate to the children's the same findings. But in terms of the publishers, I'm not sure how you get at them. Virginia was talking about that she thought it was pressure groups who really determined what came out. - Well, it's true. What is the name of that committee in Colorado, the interim report, the Colorado Committee on Sexism in Children's Textbooks, I think. They composed a letter and sent it to all of the major publishers saying, these are the facts, what are you going to do about them? And they kept the replies that they got from the publishers or if they didn't get a reply, they checked that off and gathered all this material and sent it out to all of the schools. And they told the publishers that they've, you know, then they wrote again and said this is what we're going to do. And that's pressure. The first time, very few publishers even responded. The second time the number went up and the third time the number went up significantly. - I don't think though that the educational system as it is now, is that concerned with sex stereotyping. I think they are concerned with the rights of minorities to be given equal education in this. But I think when I've talked to people, they don't seem to think that it's that important. Even though I think publishers may be would be even more on the spot because it's a financial kind of thing. People won't buy their books or something but I really don't see that the administrators are really gonna change that much no matter how many facts you show them. I don't think that they realize the importance as I see it, that the kind of stereotyping, what girls do and what boys do, is that important. - Well do you feel that there will be, or could be a tendency towards this to an increased awareness, as there has been in other areas of my minority concerns? - I think it's coming but I think it will be slower. And it's, first of all, we're fighting against, well we're not fighting, but there are a lot of people that simply don't agree with this. And people that didn't agree with civil rights and just became less and less vocal. You know what I mean? You didn't just come out and say, I think that the blacks are to stay in this neighborhood or something like that. You just didn't say that anymore but people are still willing to say out loud that girls should be treated in a certain way and boys should be treated in a certain way. - And this ways should be different. - Right. - But I think you have to look at it realistically from where we are, we're not on top of the situation. So we have to go at it with the positive attitude of hoping that education of teachers, parents, students can be successful. And at least to some degree in opening up people's minds and showing them something maybe they just never considered before. There are so many people who have no exposure, except a few headlines in the media to the entire women's movement. And that is the work, you ask what can we do? It's working in committees, such as IF Coalition, it's in classes, students talking to other students, just the whole range of education, any place where you touch the field of education, bringing this problem into they open, discussing it and trying to show other people what you feel. - Yeah, I didn't mean to sound that pessimistic but- Because I do think, I know in talking with teachers when I've just, talking with them and they'll think, oh, I always make the boys move the desk and the girls clean off the counters. I mean, just some little thing like that that they'd never thought of before. I mean, I do think that there people are realizing that kind of thing but I'm talking about an overall system reversal and I think that's gonna take obviously a long, a much longer time. - Oh, I wonder if Zolotow's "William's Doll" could have been written 10 years ago and have received the acclaim that it has now. - No, you, I think with the books for the younger children you see the most rapid change in the preschool picture books, because the whole flock of books have come out about what mommy's can do. And "William's Doll" that she's talking about is a story of a little boy who has a doll and the kind of... His grandmother disapproves. - No, his grandmother bought him the doll, his father- - Oh, it was his father that disapproves. - And the grandmother points out that he's going to grow up and he may be a father. It's important that he learned these things, but that's quite a departure in children's books. - And a lot of schools have even taken off the shelves things like "Daddies: What They Do All Day", at daddy's office and "Let's Play House". And some of these books in which, the stereotyping is very sharp. And of course it is because these books are so simple. But we still have people who want, I'm glad I'm a boy. I'm glad I'm a girl so that type of thing. And the parents were, after all, when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. He waited 40 years before he got them into the land of milk and honey. Because he wanted the older generation to be gone. - There's one other small area that we haven't mentioned, "News Magazine" every month has some kind of a, they call it stories for free children. And some of I have read and trying to be very delightful. And I think that's another area. We could go on and discuss many other aspects of children's literature. We could take it into the area of other types of media, such as children's records and we could even go on to television programs and all of those types of things. But I think that would probably carry as far into the night. So before we wrap things up, do any of the rest of you have any final comments or anything you would like to add? - It might be worth a comment about "Sesame Street". I mean, in "Sesame Street" you've got in the parts of the people in our neighborhood, the men are all doing traditional male things. No females and so often the female characters on that show play only mother roles. So you have this, of course in the books and in the records and on the television show too. They've been several articles written about "Sesame Street". - There is the record through "Ms." magazine, too, that you can order free to be you and me, which has the recorded version of the doll. What was the name of- - "William's Doll". - And some other stories that are pretty good. - My four year old friend likes to play that to me a lot. I think the first time he got it he played it 12 times on a Saturday afternoon. It was till his parents decided that maybe he shouldn't be quite that liberated. - It's a real catchy thing children just kind of pick up on like a sing song skipper too. - Well, this evening in talking about sexism and children's literature, we've talked about lots of different things. First of all, we discussed the importance of sex role stereotyping and the fact that it does affect children at an early age, probably the things they learn at home are reinforced by the literature they read, unless the parents are very careful and know exactly what they want the children to learn and what kinds of roles and images they want to project. We discussed the literary merit of children's books and that we shouldn't compromise a feminist perspective, say on literature for girls and boys, any more than we would poor literary merit in the books. we've discussed certain lists, certain resources, where we can comment on everything available from the classics and fairytales to modern day fiction for children, as well as the possibility of some textbooks. We've talked about the attitudes of the parents and of the teachers, and well as the attitudes of the other children and what effect this has on both the men and the women of tomorrow who are the children of today, who are reading these things. I thank you for being with us tonight and invite you to join us next Monday night at 7:00PM for a "Feminist Perspective".